Drummer Jan Carl and bassist Steve Boone rounded out the group, but Carl was replaced by drummer-vocalist Joe Butler after the group's first gig at The Night Owl in Greenwich Village. Butler had previously played with Boone in a group called The Kingsmen (not the hit group of "Louie Louie" fame). The group's first Night Owl performances were reportedly so bad that the club owner told them to go away and practice, so they practiced in the basement of the nearby Hotel Albert until they had improved enough to draw audience attention.[3]

The group made its first recordings for Elektra Records in early 1965, and agreed in principle to sign a long-term deal with Elektra in exchange for a $10,000 advance. However, Kama Sutra Records had an option to sign the Lovin' Spoonful as recording artists as part of a previously signed production deal, and Kama Sutra exercised the option upon learning of Elektra's intent to sign the band.[4] The four tracks recorded for Elektra were released on the 1966 various artists compilation LP What's Shakin' after the band's success on Kama Sutra.

The band worked with producer Erik Jacobsen to release their first single on July 20, 1965, "Do You Believe in Magic", written by Sebastian. Additionally, they wrote their own material (aside from a few covers, mostly on their first album),[5][6] including "Younger Girl" (which missed the Hot 100), which was a hit for The Critters in mid-1966.

"Do You Believe in Magic" reached #9 on the Hot 100, and the band followed it up with a series of hit singles and albums throughout 1965 and 1966, all produced by Jacobsen. The Lovin' Spoonful became known for such folk-flavored pop hits as "You Didn't Have to Be So Nice", which reached #10, and "Daydream", which went to #2.[5][7] Other hits included "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?" (another #2 hit) and their only song to reach #1 on the Hot 100, "Summer in the City" (August 13–27, 1966). Later that year, the #10 hit "Rain on the Roof" and the #8 hit "Nashville Cats" (which went on to become a staple in the concerts of bluegrass legend Del McCoury) completed the group's first seven consecutive Hot 100 hits to reach that chart's top 10. The only other 1960s act to achieve that feat is Gary Lewis & the Playboys. Some years later, Bobby Weinstein and The Lovin' Cohens turned "Nashville Cats" into "Noshville Katz", a frequent Dr. Demento staple.[8]

The Lovin' Spoonful was one of the most successful pop/rock groups to have jug band and folk roots, and nearly half the songs on their first album were modernized versions of blues standards. Their popularity revived interest in the form, and many subsequent jug bands cite them as an inspiration. The rest of their albums featured mostly original songs, but their jug band roots showed up again and again, particularly in "Daydream" and the lesser-known "Money" (which only reached #48, in 1968), featuring a typewriter as percussion.

Lovin' Spoonful members termed their approach "good-time music". In the liner notes of "Do You Believe in Magic," Zal Yanovsky said that he "became a convert to Reddy Kilowatt because it's loud, and people dance to it, and it's loud." Soon-to-be members of the psychedelic rock band the Grateful Dead were part of the West Coast acoustic folk music scene when the Lovin' Spoonful came to town on tour. They credited the Lovin' Spoonful concert as a fateful experience, after which they decided to leave the folk scene and "go electric".[citation needed]

At the peak of the band's success, the producers of the television series that later became The Monkees initially planned to build their series around the Lovin' Spoonful, but dropped the band from the project due to conflicts over song publishing rights.[9][10] The band also gained an added bit of publicity when Butler replaced Jim Rado in the role of Claude for a sold-out four-month run with the Broadway production of the rock musical Hair. The Lovin' Spoonful's song "Pow!" was used as the opening theme of Woody Allen's first feature film, What's Up, Tiger Lily; the band also composed and played instrumental music for the film and appeared in some live performance sequences in the film (reportedly added during post-production without Allen's knowledge or consent).[11][12][13] Shortly thereafter, John Sebastian composed the music for Francis Ford Coppola's second film, You're a Big Boy Now, and the Lovin' Spoonful played the music for the soundtrack, which included yet another hit, "Darling Be Home Soon". Both films were released in 1966.[14] In addition, the Michelangelo Antonioni film Blow-up, also released that year, contained an instrumental version of the Spoonful song, "Butchie's Tune", performed by jazz musician Herbie Hancock.

In early 1967, the band broke with their producer Erik Jacobsen, turning to Joe Wissert to produce the single "Six O'Clock", which reached #18 in the U.S.

Yanovsky left the band after the soundtrack album You're a Big Boy Now was released in May 1967, primarily due to a drug bust in San Francisco, in which he was arrested for possession of marijuana and pressured by police to name his supplier. He was a Canadian citizen and feared that he would be barred from re-entering the U.S., so he complied.[15][16] The incident resulted in a public backlash from the counterculture against the band, with a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Free Press (according to music critic Ralph Gleason) "urging people not to buy Spoonful records and not to attend their concerts and, to the girls, not to ball them."[16] Although Yanovsky went on to release a solo single and album, his musical career was severely harmed.[17] He later left the music business and opened a restaurant, Chez Piggy, in Kingston, Ontario in Canada. The restaurant is now owned and run by his daughter.[18]

It should be noted however, that Yanovsky, Sebastian and Boone all independently concur in interview that Yanovsky's sacking was down to Yanovsky's open disenchantment with the band's direction and Sebastian's song writing. Sebastian's music was becoming "more personal" while Yanovsky desired a (probably unachievable) return to their early years club scene [19]

Yanovsky's replacement was Jerry Yester, formerly of the Modern Folk Quartet. Around this time, perhaps coincidentally, the band's sound became more pop-oriented.

The new line-up of the Lovin' Spoonful recorded two moderately successful Wissert-produced singles ("She Is Still a Mystery" and "Money"), as well as the 1967 album Everything Playing. Sebastian then left the group by early 1968 to go solo.[15]

The group was now officially a trio, and drummer Butler (who had previously sung lead on a few album tracks) became the group's new lead vocalist. Up to this point Sebastian had written (or co-written) and sung every one of the Lovin' Spoonful's hits; the band now turned to outside writers for their singles, and used a variety of outside producers. The band's last two Hot 100 entries, "Never Goin' Back (to Nashville)" written by John Stewart and "Me About You", were sung by Butler. In addition, "Never Goin' Back" only featured Yester and Butler's playing—the other musical parts were played by session musicians, which had not occurred since drummer Gary Chester played on Do You Believe In Magic.[20] "Never Goin' Back" was the highest-charting single of the group's post-Sebastian career, topping out at #73.

With commercial success waning, the Lovin' Spoonful lasted only until early 1969. They split up following the release of their album Revelation: Revolution '69. In 1969 Steve Boone produced an album for Mercury Records by a group known as The Oxpetals a cosmic rock band inspired by The Moody Blues "In Search of The Lost Chord" When the album failed to chart Steve bought a sailboat and lived aboard for the next 4 years in the Caribbean. In 1973 he moved back to Baltimore, MD and took over a recording studio built by legendary engineer George Massenburg and renamed it Blue Seas after a ship that was salvaged in the Caribbean. Blue Seas went on to record many well known artists among them Lowell George and Little Feat who recorded "Feats Don't Fail Me Now" there, Robert Palmer and The Seldom Scene. He went on the produce Live at Maguires Hill 16 by The Irish Times in Fort Lauderdale, Florida along with fellow producer Dan Obrien in 1994.

In 1970, following John Sebastian's 1969 solo performance at Woodstock, Kama Sutra issued the song "Younger Generation" as a single. Sebastian had closed his Woodstock set with the song.[21] The single version was taken from the two-year-old Everything Playing album and credited to "The Lovin' Spoonful featuring John Sebastian"; it failed to chart.

The original group (Sebastian, Yanovsky, Butler and Boone) reunited briefly in the fall of 1979 for a show at the Concord Hotel in the Catskills for an appearance in the Paul Simon film One Trick Pony, which was released in October 1980.

In 1991, after a long-awaited settlement with their record company, Butler and Boone decided to start up the Lovin' Spoonful again with Jerry Yester. They were joined by Jerry's brother, Jim Yester (vocals and guitar), formerly of The Association. Sebastian and Yanovsky declined to participate. In March 1992 drummer John Marrella was added to the band to allow Joe Butler to concentrate on vocals. After a two-month rehearsal in the Berkshire Mountains, the group started touring, with Joe Butler now the most common lead singer. Keyboardist David Jayco was added in June 1992. Jim Yester left this new grouping in March 1993 and was replaced by guitarist Randy Chance. Jerry's daughter, Lena Yester (vocals and keyboards), replaced David Jayco at the same time. Randy Chance was sacked in June 1993 and was not replaced. Mike Arturi replaced John Marrella on drums in March 1997 and Phil Smith joined on guitar in 2000 replacing Lena Yester.

The song "Coffee Blues" is a tribute to Maxwell House Coffee, which Hurt describes, "rapping" in the beginning of the song, as being two or three times any other brand, ergo, he only needs one spoonful to make him feel all right, what he describes as "my lovin' spoonful" in the song. The song is part of a group of songs with a long history in recorded blues that generally use the term "a spoonful" to suggest sex, and in some cases use of a drug such as cocaine.[28] The term "lovin' spoonful" has been conjectured as referring to the amount of ejaculate released by a male during a typical orgasm.[29][30][31][32][33][34][35]

In the AMC television series Mad Men, which is set in the 1960s, the characters Sally Draper and Glen Bishop are fans of the band. The band's song, "Butchie's Tune," is featured in the penultimate episode of the series' fifth season.[41] Jazz saxophonist Bud Shank released an album of jazz covers of Lovin' Spoonful songs A Spoonful of Jazz in 1967. In 2016 rock artist Richard Barone recorded a version of the Spoonful's "Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind?" featuring John Sebastian on harmonica and autoharp, and making a vocal cameo appearance.

^Saulnier, Jason (December 13, 2011). "Zal Yanovsky guitarist for The Lovin' Spoonful Remembered". Retrieved August 13, 2012. John Sebastian said it sounded like a combination of "Mississippi John Hurt and Chuck Berry", prompting his friend, Fritz Richmond, to suggest the name "Lovin' Spoonful" from a line in Hurt's song, "Coffee Blues."